Can a lack of sleep make you feel sick?

I think most of you know that for the proper and full functioning of the body should be at least 7.5-8 hours to rest. That is, an ordinary healthy people should sleep no less this time a day to feel refreshed and full of energy. So what are the lack of sleep negative effects? And what are the health effects of chronic sleep deprivation?

According to estimates of the American National Sleep Foundation, over the past 20-30 years, sleep duration has decreased on average by 1 hour. On weekdays Americans sleep about only 6 hours and 40 minutes. Spend at work 9.5 hours and over 17 hours awake. Of course such a frantic pace and a chronic sleep deprivation has a negative influence on health. The sleep deprivation consequences are decreased performance, excessive irritability, negative effect on the metabolism and the immune system. Lack of sleep make you feel sick, continuous lack of energy and fatigue is often perceived as hunger. So people who do not get enough sleep, have tendency consume more calories than they need.

Sleep deprivation experiments and results

The research results, published in the monthly overview US academic journal on diet and nutrition, confirm the fact of overeating due to lack of sleep. The study participants were divided into 2 groups, one of them slept 8 hours and the another for 4 hours. The next day, all of them ate as much as they wanted. Amount of calories, feeling of sleepiness and physical activity were recorded. It was found that those who slept 4 hours ate at 559 calories more than those who slept 8 hours! In addition, they felt themselves more hungry between meals.

Other studies about sleep deprivation revealed even more interesting facts. Especially concerning human hormone levels. Lack of sleep make you feel sick and leads to problems with producing hormones responsible for appetite (leptin and ghrelin), an imbalance in which leads to overeating and obesity. For men sleep reduction from 8 to 5 hours for just 5 days causes a drop in testosterone levels from 10 to 30%. Also, lack of sleep triggers increase in the stress hormone cortisol, which causes irritability, and promotes the development of depression. For people who are involved in sports, cortisol negatively affects the processes of muscle recovery and growth.

Health effects of chronic sleep deprivation

Thus according to the above, the shortage of sleep is a serious problem that can lead to negative consequences as for physiological health in form of overeating and obesity, as for mental health in the form of increased excitability, irritability and even depression. Also lack of sleep can transform into a chronic,and health effects of chronic sleep deprivation are much more worse. The symptoms of this are constant headaches and slowing of mental processes, which reduces the concentration, affects the ability to analyze and memorize information.